The Friday Catch-Up: Facebook Throws Us a Curveball

Hi there! We know that we always have something negative to say about the week and how Friday is such a relief, but in all honesty, this week was not so bad. Nevertheless, there is no Friday that we do not welcome with open arms. This week’s Friday catch-up brings surprising news from social media giant Facebook, some more Google controversy (are we getting tired of this yet?) and excellent tips from around the web.

Facebook Acquires a Speech-recognition and Translation Company

Recently, Facebook has been in the new simply for the fact that it hasn’t done anything newsworthy for quite a while. In fact, some people wondered whether Facebook had peaked and we were going to be witness to the demise of yet another social network. Facebook needed to come up with new magic tricks and fast. This is just what they’ve done with the speech recognition system. In a status update, they announced that they had acquired Mobile Technologies. They claimed that they wanted to bring together the users of Facebook and remove the barriers of communication so people can connect with each other easily. Read more about it at Venture Beat.

User Privacy and the Google Lawsuit

It’s no secret that our personal information and privacy aren’t very secure when it comes to the World Wide Web. Whatever illusions users may have had when it comes to Google were shattered when Google claimed that its 425 million users never really expect privacy when sending emails using Gmail. This stunning claim was made in court in defense of a privacy lawsuit that they are facing. They attempted to provide an explanation by saying that it’s similar to sending a letter to someone and being surprised when the office assistant opens and reads it. A spokesperson for Google however negated all these statements on Wednesday. Make sure to go and read further on this case at The Guardian as it may most likely be affecting you.

Facebook taking a leaf out of PayPal’s Book

Facebook has recently announced the introduction of another feature to its social networking site. They have started developing an online payment system that works similar to that of Papal. A test version is expected to be released within 1 or 2 months. Facebook advertising, the new graph search and a ne payment method sets Facebook up for success and profits in the future. In fact Facebook may be able to track the shopping habits of its customers using credit card numbers. Read more about t his new feature at Venture Beat.

Tips & Tricks

Use Facebook Apps to Boost your Business

Facebook pages often require page owners to know a certain amount of code. Not every small business owner however is fluent in coding language. These problems can be overcome with the use Facebook Apps which allow you to run contests, import blog posts. Sell products and provide customer support.

You can install up to 11 Apps on your Facebook page out of which 4 will be visible. These apps offer complicated services such as email sign-up lists, forms and other interactive content. For the complete amateur, they even offer cover page and automated update services. Social Media Examiner explains how you can use these Apps to your advantage in a very detailed and impressive article.

Setting up a Budget for you Social Media Marketing Plan

Creating a social media budget can be often confusing and difficult. There are several mistakes that advertisers make when creating a social media plan. One of them is focusing all their energy on Facebook. Facebook may be a social media giant but it is just as important to reach customers on other social networks as well. There are rarely people who only own a Facebook account. This means that the message can be repetitively sent to the target audience which is on multiple networking sites. Understand the original content that you will create and create budgets. Make sure to create 4 different budgets each for a quarter. Read more on how to create a social media marketing budget at Social Media Today.

Increase Sales using Long Tail SEO

Search Engine Optimization can not only be used to drive traffic towards our website but also to increase the number of sales. When consumers are about to purchase a product and are doing internet research on the said product, they are likely to use keywords which tell about the product such as ‘reviews’, alternatives’ or competition. It is very important that the reviews which show up on the first page of Google results are favorable. Bad reviews will definitely change the minds of people looking to buy your product. In order to resolve this issue, use Google Suggestor to fid keywords and create a landing page for those keywords. You can also give away your product to bloggers and ask them to write reviews. Read more on Quick Sprout.

Create an Effective Editorial Calendar

Ann Smarty of Internet Marketing Ninjas shares neat tricks that you can use to make sure you create a functional, inspiring and creative editorial calendar. You can use various editorial software and plug-ins such as on WordPress to set up the calendar. Define definite reachable gals on the calendar and color code tasks in terms of importance. Once you’ve been through the effort of creating a calendar make sure to follow it and update regularly. Remember to write off previous completed tasks and reevaluate as your goals change overtime.

Internet Marketing with Video

It’s no surprise that visuals are always more appealing to the human eye than text. A study revealed that marketers that used video in email campaign generated 40% higher revenue. It is also estimated that the global internet traffic will be coming through mobile devices by 2014. Dominic Byrne of EConsultancy outlines some of the features a good marketing video for mobile should have.

404 Error Alerts with Google Analytics

Daniel Waiseberg of Google Analytics revealed a tip on how to make sure Google Analytics alerts you when your uses are receiving 404 error messages. These pages are of-putting and ruin the user experience. Monitoring a 404 error, which may contain a bug, is important for website owners. To set up alerts for 404 in Analytics you will need to go to the Admin panel on the top-left navigation. Click the profile on which to create the alert and create a goal. Once you click custom alerts, the new alert will be created. Read more on SE Roundtable.

Using YouTube Ad Campaigns for Direct Marketing

Advertising on YouTube is different in the sense that you don’t always need viewers to click on links like traditional internet marketing but rather watch videos and advertisements. This is why YouTube advertising is charged at CPV (Cost Per View). There are 3 kinds of YouTube Ads. These are In-Search, In-Stream and In-Display. In-search ads are those that show up when a viewer types a query in the search box. In-Stream are advertisements which run before the targeted content and can be closed after 5 seconds. In-Display are similar to Google ads on YouTube pages or even inside the video box. Visit Search Engine Watch to see how you can use them to boost your business.

Paid Social Media

Online marketing, is as always, easier said than done. The introduction, rather the commotion over paid social media over the last few weeks has made it apparent that there’s yet another dimension that business will need to focus in the near future. Read through this great article on Search Engine Land to find out more about how and why you will need to start using this tool.

What Top Ranked Sites have in Common

A study by Kiss Metrics analyzed 10,000 searches from 300,000 URLS for the top three pages in Google UK. Three samples were taken from various industries and the factors that tied them together were analyzed. The results showed that famous brand would automatically have higher rankings and don’t have to work as hard as smaller businesses. Each website had high quality content and didn’t focus on the little stuff such as using keywords in the domain name.

Infographics

B2B Marketing Trends

B2B marketing trends are now shifting from traditional whitepapers towards interactive video. The infographic at Marketing Profs showed that YouTube was gaining popularity as a B2B marketing platform whereas Facebook was losing ground. 93% of B2B marketers were now creating marketing content from scratch. Case studies and Testimonials are considered the most effective marketing methods whereas the least popular were online games, podcasts and printed books.

Nofollow Links within Widgets

This time Matt Cutts suggested in his Google video that widgets links within widgets should be nofollowed. With the abuse of widgets and infographics over time by embedding links within them, Google has begun taking stricter measures. Matt Cutts suggested that infographics and widgets should not be the primary link building method and that it was better to nofollow those links to prevent any problems in the future.

Search Habits of People

Stone Temple conducted an interesting experiment where they assessed the manner in which people asked general and personal questions. “Google It” has actually become common terminology and they wanted to analyze just how much we rely on search engines for information. They asked people to fill out a questionnaire with 10 questions. Each had an option of either asking friends directly, using a social networking site or Googling it. They predicted that most questions would be googled while others would have a lower score. The astonishing results however showed a 100% response for Googling questions. It says a lot about how we have evolved as a society. Read a question by question breakdown at Stone Temple.